Uncrossing the Stars
by Aaron Ledgers
Summary: Love is a coin with two sides: joy... and pain. Knowing this, what would you do if a boy who was born Hell fell in love with you? Most would probably think of it as a nightmare, but for Angela - a conduit who's been running for her life since the age of seven - such a case is alarmingly welcome. Still, with all of modern humanity after them, can the two truly hope to defy mankind?


**Prologue: Reaching for Heaven  
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It was her.

There wasn't a single doubt.

It was definitely her.

The furry tip of Xaphile's long tail lazily flicked across the dusty rooftop as he observed the white-haired girl sleeping on the bench below.

She was pale and oddly thin, most likely in her early teens... maybe fifteen or sixteen.

But she was almost exactly the same as he remembered: the same face, the same hair color, heck, even the same scent.

His catlike green eyes softened and became ever more gentle the longer he took in her fragile appearance, but he was well aware that even a loving expression would look frightening on a face like his. He was an ugly creature, after all… even though his soul was pure, he wore the skin of a monster. He was something ugly, and completely unlovable... well, to everyone aside from the girl below him. After a moment, the Demon blinked and leaned forward since the white-haired girl had finally woken up. He hadn't been able to see her eyes because she'd been sleeping when he'd first spotted her.

If she really was the girl he was looking for, her eyes would tell him.

Feeling a bit anxious, Xaphile slowly stood up and slinked over to the edge of the rooftop. Then he wrapped himself up in a cloak of shadows and leapt down into the darkness of the alley, manipulating the light around him to avoid being seen. Once he was on solid ground, he peered out into the courtyard and glanced at the girl again. However, the moment he saw her eyes, something in him flared up and he stared in awe. Slowly lifting his furry hand, the demon touched the hole in his chest with a tight expression on his face.

Then, opening his mouth, he quietly uttered a single word.

"Angeline," he whispered, lime green eyes filling with an unfathomable emotion. "Angel..."

He'd found her: the one person in this twisted world who could make him feel any sort of positive emotion.

She was right there, close enough to call out to.

And yet... he was still helpless to do anything but watch from the sidelines, and it agonized him: he'd been looking for this girl for four long years... and now, just when he'd finally found her again, he couldn't do anything or even approach her. After all, he was a demon hiding among humans... and humans destroyed what they didn't understand. Even if those misunderstood things weren't evil.

"Angel..." he whispered, slowly lifting his arm and discreetly waving them as a fit of longing flashed across his face. "Over here... look!"

However, the girl merely rubbed her eyes and leaned back against the bench, looking weary and totally exhausted. Her face was almost exactly the same as the first time he'd ever met her, but now she wasn't wearing her glasses, and her hair was... well, still braided. Then again, it was almost unbelievably long: it actually kind of shocked him just how long her hair had grown... instead of hanging to the middle of her back the way it had when he'd first met her, her braids now hung down to the ends of her thighs.

He stood there, not knowing what to do and feeling completely helpless for the first time in years: if he went out there, the humans would see him. They'd try to kill him like they'd done in the past. But if he didn't, he wouldn't be able to reunite with her.

The hole in his chest throbbed and filled with a soft green light that matched the color of his eyes when the girl slowly curled up on the bench again.

He'd known from the start that he was different from his evil kind... that he, for whatever reason, could feel compassion. The ability to feel emotion in any shape or form was thought of as an impossibility amongst those born in the fires of Hell... even those who represented the negative aspects of human desires didn't feel those same desires. And yet, he alone could feel things to a limited degree... and because of it, he vaguely understood the difference between right and wrong.

That's why, after being given false hope by a Fallen Angel, the Demon child known as Xaphile Heseroph actually fled the fires of hell and set out to find God beyond the Gates of Heaven. He had entered the holy city in the hopes that the Lord would take pity on him, for he'd really had no choice in being born as what he was... but before he'd had a chance to make his way to where he knew God was waiting for him, the Archangel Michael had found him and cast him out without even giving him a chance.

However, he hadn't been sent back to hell.

No... after falling from a terrifying void full of blinding light, he had woken up on earth.

Without his heart.

In truth, a huge and extremely painful hole had been carved clean through his upper abdomen, right in the center of his chest: the place where his heart had once been. Even to this day, the wound was so deep that it stretched all the way through his body and actually allowed the demon to see through himself.

And when he'd first fallen, the voice of God hadn't called out to him.

Michael's voice had.

_"Child of Hell, you are not welcome here,"_ the Angel had whispered. "_Only those who know Love and Forgiveness can enter heaven."_

"_Really?!"_ Xaphile had exclaimed; back then, he'd still been a naive and hopeful little thing._ "Well, then I'll find someone to love and forgive me!"_

At first, the boy had thought it would be easy to make someone love him.

After all, when he'd been cast out, he had only been a twelve-year-old child, and there were supposedly lots of compassionate beings on Earth.

It was only a few hours later that he'd realized he had been completely wrong: everywhere he'd gone, people had thrown stones or fired strange weapons at him... weapons that had done terrible damage to his body and hurt him badly. No matter who he'd attempted to talk to, everyone had become frightened of his appearance: they had all either run away in terror or attacked him.

Only a week of this had passed before he'd gone into hiding.

After that, it had been a constant struggle to survive on Earth: he had been spotted, so escaping from the humans had been no easy feat.

He had run for months across unknown lands, fighting to remain unseen, fleeing from the ones who'd started chasing after him.

The ones who were always dressed in black.

However, after nearly a year of fighting for survival, he'd met Angeline O'Conner for the very first time.

Back then, Xaphile had been so exhausted from the constant chases that he'd run out of energy, so he'd hidden himself in an alley despite being in the middle of a big city. He had only been there for a few days when he was finally cornered: the group of humans who had been hunting him had somehow discovered his hiding place while he'd been sleeping and jumped him after night had fallen. They'd beaten him so senseless that he hadn't even been able to sit upright on his own... and then, they'd tortured him.

They'd purposely caused him pain.

It didn't matter, though, because the men in black had been planning on killing him, anyway: he'd known because he'd seen it in their eyes.

After they'd had their fun, one of them had pulled out a gun and pointed it at the demon's head, so Xaphile had simply closed his eyes and waited. He'd expected nothing less of the monsters around him... but then, the sound of a scuffle and several exclamations of shock had erupted: when the gun went off, the bullet had bounced off the wall. Then a set of small hands had gripped his furry forearm, hands that had weakly jerked him upright.

The feeling of his furry feet touching the concrete had vanished only a second later, but he hadn't really understood what was going on until he'd opened his bruised green eyes and seen a blanket of silver hair shining in front of his face. He'd immediately wondered whether or not an angel had come to carry him away: after all, the Archangel Michael had tresses of the same shade. He didn't remember passing out, but the next time he'd opened his eyes, he'd been lying in an abandoned warehouse.

Sleeping next to his battered body was a beautiful little girl with pale skin, braided white pigtails, and white eyelashes. He'd felt more than a little dazed by the frozen beauty lying next to him, but when he'd touched his forehead to find that all of his injures had clumsily been bandaged up in some way or another, he stared at the pretty girl with uneasy eyes. She'd looked to be a little younger than him… maybe ten or eleven years old.

However, the moment he'd tried to sit up in an attempt leave, the girl's eyes had flicked open and he'd frozen.

They were the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen: her irises were such a startling shade of pink that it had made him want to stare… and stare… and stare.

For some reason, those gorgeously large eyes of hers had been utterly entrancing.

The albino girl had blinked a few times before sitting up and feeling around for her glasses; after putting them on with a yawn, she'd looked at him carefully and examined his features with a sleepy demeanor. After a moment, her pale face had taken on a relieved expression.

"You're awake..." she'd mumbled, rubbing her eyes and letting out another yawn. "Those guys were scary... they hurt you pretty badly."

"Why did you help me?" Xaphile had immediately stammered, staring at the albino with unblinking green eyes. "I'm the ugliest creature in the world."

"Who needs a reason to help someone?" the girl had asked, looking straight into his large green eyes for a long moment; then, after a few seconds of gazing at his Satyr-like features, she'd smiled so radiantly that his heart had nearly stopped beating. "And by the way? I've seen worse."

And just like that, his eyes had widened and his chest had throbbed with a feeling he'd never experienced until that moment. He was a monster who looked like a Satyr with a lion's features: aside from the horns growing out of his skull, the enormous ebony wings stretching out of his back, and the jet black fur growing on his arms and down his spine, his upper torso was relatively human in nature. His legs, however, resembled a beast's: he had a tail that was even longer than his own body, and the anatomy of his lower torso actually allowed him to walk on all fours.

He was a monster... and yet, she had openly accepted him.

Without a second thought.

"What is your name?" Xaphile had blankly asked, making the girl glance at him in surprise. "Who are you?"

"I'm Angel!" the girl had giggled, giving him a happy salute. "Angeline O'Conner, at your service! Oh... right! What's _your_ name?"

The moment she'd asked, a dim green glow had emanated from the hole in his chest and he'd been struck by a realization.

Because she had accepted him as himself, he no longer had a desire for God to change his looks or even his nature: if this girl would accept him as he was... he would be happy for the rest of his long life. The moment he'd realized it, the world around him had dissolved and the albino girl's grinning face had been the only thing he could see.

"Xaphile," he'd whispered, staring at her with adoring green eyes. "My name is Xaphile Herseroph."

For the next three days, the girl had tended to his wounds and helped him recover: she'd brought him some food, and the two of them had talked about living in the city together since they both looked a little weird compared to normal people. They had found something in each other... something only the other could give, something special.

But then, on the fourth day of his recovery, Angel had told him she needed to get some more supplies.

"I'm hungry, so I'm gonna go see if I can find something to eat," she'd stated, giving the little grin that always made his belly flop. "I'll be back in about ten minutes! I promise! I'll even try to get you snack! You told me you've never tasted chocolate, right? I'll try to bring some!"

With that, she'd happily left the factory and gone to get some food and water for the two of them.

However, she'd never come back.

Xaphile had waited... and waited... and waited... days had soon begun to pass, days which turned into weeks... and weeks into months.

He'd waited in that factory until the summer season had started changing to the winter season... but she'd never returned.

Which was why, when he'd been certain that he was well enough to fly, the demon had unfurled his wings for the first time in months and flown into the sky. He'd looked for her all over the place, but... he hadn't been able to find her anywhere. From country to country, from continent to continent... he hadn't caught a single glimpse of Angel anywhere for nearly four years.

Until now.

And after all of that, nearly a thousand miles away from where they'd first met, he couldn't even get close because of the humans milling around her.

It was infuriatingly depressing.

However, Xaphile stopped moping when the girl's body abruptly stiffened in an abnormal manner.

Fear flashed across her face and her eyes widened somewhat, making him furrow his brows in concern: he watched with alert green eyes as the girl slowly sat up and stared at something across the Venetian square: when he followed her frightened gaze, his pupils contracted into catlike slits since a man wearing dark clothing was inconspicuously eying her. The demon glanced back at the albino just in time to see her casually get up and stretch; then she dusted off the front of her ankle-length dress skirt and zipped up her pale pink hoodie before walking in the opposite direction. The demon's eyes narrowed when the man slowly made his way across the courtyard.

The stranger slid past the crowds of people who were milling around without taking his eyes off of Angeline's retreating figure.

He was following her.

Why he was doing so, Xaphile didn't know, but something definitely wasn't right if Angeline's reaction to seeing him was any clue. Slowly crouching down, the demon spread his wings and lifted them high into the air before springing off the ground and sending them thundering back down. He instantly flapped and caught a draft of air before sailing into the sky and landing on a nearby rooftop: then he methodically began to follow the two of them. Not long afterwards, however, a ringing sound filled the air in front of him.

His eyes widened and he halted, because this type of silence usually only came before a massive explosion.

Xaphile chanced a glance ahead and froze when he saw a blinding white light illuminating a nearby alley: not even a second later, several buildings disintegrated in a spray of white lightning that flew towards the sky. Xaphile's eyes slowly widened and he choked, feeling his heart plummeting back down to earth.

"What was that?!" he whispered, watching as the people on the streets ran in the opposite direction and started screaming. Taking the opportunity to discard his discretion, the demon flew down towards the ground and started running on all fours since it was faster for him. Just as he made it to the decimated alley, he saw a dark figure running into another nearby alley and quickly followed it. On his way through it, however, he caught a trace of the Angel's familiar scent and froze.

He slowly turned his head and spotted a small sandal lying amongst the rubble: it was the scent he would never forget… baby's breath and vanilla.

Before he could think about anything else... a girl's high-pitched screech filled the air, and his fanged mouth clamped tightly shut.

"HELP ME!" that distant voice wailed. "SOMEONE, HELP ME!"

The moment he heard that familiar tone, the whites of his eyes filled with shadows and his bright green irises flared with yellow light.

_I'm coming,_ he whispered silently, fanning his wings and flicking his tail before he tore through the streets like a wild animal. _I'll find you…_ _just wait for me._

Without another thought, he once again began searching for the Love he'd finally found.


End file.
